


A Drop in the Bucket

by OneShotWonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Memories, Post-Hell Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:20:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7922080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneShotWonder/pseuds/OneShotWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean can't sleep. He sits by the bed with a bottle of whisky and dark memories, pouring over the past. Sam finds him there and tries to comfort him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Drop in the Bucket

Dean Winchester stared at the ceiling of the motel, blinking in the night and puffing out a frustrated sigh. His vision had long become accustomed to the dim room, lit only by the street lights shining through the faded curtains. He squinted and glanced at the harsh red light of the clock on the bed side table, 4:37. They finished a hunt that night and came back to the motel around 1am, exhausted and sore.

Luckily, the brothers had managed to keep most of their blood on the inside of their bodies for this one; they only came out with a few nasty bruises to show for the hunt. They didn’t even bring the first aid kit in from the car, Dean mused, now _that_ was lucky. Sam’s light snore filled the room and Dean shifted his pained shoulder under the starchy sheets.

Should have put ice on it like Sam warned me to, he cringed. A few hours before, they fussed over some of the particulars of the hunt, and then Sam was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. This was one of the most important parts of the job that no one ever talked about; being able to sleep anywhere, any time. Hunters didn’t have the luxury of regular sleeping hours, as most hunts happened during the night, and of course, the unpredictability of the whole profession.

Sam sometimes joked that it was like being on the front lines of a war, but the thought made Dean uncomfortable. He knew war, he felt like a soldier, but these jobs felt like life sometimes instead. 

He liked hunting, he really did, at one point at least, but nowadays it seemed like something he _needed_ , rather than wanted to do with his life. If he didn’t save everyone he could, the guilt would bury him, and keeping this knowledge securely with him at all times gave him the strength to keep going, to keep fighting. Nights like this, when he was buzzing for a drink and the insomnia kicked in, the guilt poured over him like a wave.

If he would have thought more about it, he would have realized that the insomnia, the shaking hands, the nausea and headaches, were all symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. But Dean didn’t think much about it, and his cure for insomnia was always whisky anyway.

Most nights, it was the only thing that kept him from having nightmares. And who could blame him? The Winchester boys had seen more in their 20 some years on this planet than anyone in their right mind should. Dean liked to think if anyone else would have been dropped in his shoes, they would be insane by now. He would never call himself a hero, there was too much bad he had done, but he knew he was strong, mentally and physically, and that made him proud.

His bare feet slapped lightly on the cold linoleum floor and he quietly rifled through his bag for the cool neck of the bottle concealed there. He didn’t bother with a glass and sat down on the floor with his back propped up against his bed, facing away from Sam toward the door. He held back a small moan of pleasure as the warm liquid slipped down his throat; feeling the familiar burn down to his stomach, where the liquor settled nicely. First a sip, then a gulp, he knew he would regret this in the morning. Fuck it, it’s already morning.

He wished he could sleep.

But the images rattling around his head on this particular night were definitely not sugarplums. Sometimes the memories of hell were so vivid, so fresh that he thought he could smell the burned flesh and taste the metallic blood. There was a war going on inside him and he felt the hunger to hurt something well up like a wave. It pulsed and beat against everything Dean held dear.

He knew he could never let it win; never let the wall crumble, and he held it back. How could he ever tell Sam what he had done? The guilt was powerful; he felt it surge up with his heart rate.

He took another swig from the bottle and pulled his hand down over his face, surprised to see it wet with tears. He wanted to berate himself for sitting and crying in the dark like some girl going through a break up, he wanted to make fun of how he had become every cliché chick flick ever made. But the hurt he felt was stronger than that, so he laughed a choked sob and took another drink. Flashes of memory ripped through his mind before he could hold them back.

 

\--Sam laying dead on the bed, while he yelled incoherencies, racking his mind for a way to bring his brother back to life.

 

\--Dead bodies, one after another, of all the people he couldn’t save in time from the monsters he hunted. Mangled in every possible way, he remembered corpses of women, and children, bloody and disfigured in their deaths.

 

\--The look on his father’s face during their last conversation, the desperate smile through a split lip, the smell of him—leather and whisky and lighter fluid as he whispered heresy in Dean’s hear.

 

\--His own hand on the hilt of the knife that slid into Amy’s chest—the kitsune that was Sam’s friend all those years ago.

 

\--Jo, sweet Jo who was stronger than she had ever realized, lying on the floor against her mother, her insides splayed out, covering the entire front of her in blood. _I left her there to die._

 

\--Sam’s face when he grabbed the gun out of Dean’s hand, going into the next room the kill the werewolf he had dared to love for a few short days. The sound of the shot that seemed to rip away Sam’s innocence one more time.

 

\--The screaming souls that mingled into one loud purring sound in Dean’s memory, his hands covered in blood not his own, smile on his lips.

 

Dean gripped the bottle so tight he thought it would shatter in his hands, his breathing came in hitched gasps and he was crying freely now, body shaking with each racking sob, pulled bitterly from the painful memories.

He didn’t notice Sam standing at the foot of his bed until he whispered.

“Dean?”

“Sonofa-“ Dean flinched and turned his face away from Sam, even though it was pretty clear Sam saw the tears.

Sam’s towering form stood tall, but his face twisted up with a flurry of emotions Dean didn’t want to see.

“Dean,” Sam whispered again and his tone dripping with sympathy, Dean felt disgusted.

Without a word he wiped his face on his sleeve and took another long pull from the bottle. He turned so Sam could see him in the faint morning light coming in through the window.

He locked eyes with his brother. Sam read his expression with the expertise they both expected out of each other. It was a begging, pleading expression that simply said _'please_ _don’t make me talk.'_

“Ok...” his younger brother said, as if Dean had voiced the feeling at loud.

“You know I am here, right here, whenever you are ready…. and, even if you never are… I am still here.” He heard Sam flop his huge frame back onto his bed and sighed with relief. Dean stared at all his emotions, splayed all over the room in heaping piles; and one by one, pulled them back into himself and tucked them safely away. It took a long time, and a few more sips of whisky, but by the time he was done, he slid back under the motel room sheets and tried to get comfortable.

Neither brother got any more sleep that night. They just lie there listening to each other breathe for a few more hours, until Sam felt it was appropriate to get up and start the day. They were both exhausted to the bone, but what else was new for a Winchester?


End file.
